Scott, what is your point in giving attention to someone who has shown his totally unethical behavior, and no less unsettling is the likelihood that your blog post will put ideas in some affiliate's heads?
Wouldn't your knowledge and expertise have been better served by sharing it as a reply on his blog than just giving it attention here?
I'm disappointed, Scott.
Scott: Yep this is completely old school and Bass Ackwards. I guess people don't care about their public perception or credibility anymore.
Sheryl: I disagree. Far more old/new affiliates read this blog so setting the record straight is the duty of an old hat. If someone is on the look for unethical marketing practices you can easily find this info all over the web. Hopefully this post will get some of them back on the ethical marketing path.
Skyobi: SPAM
Sheryl,
I have to disagree as well. People were commenting on John's blog that the move was ill-advised. ShoeMoney posted himself it was considered fraudulent activity. And still people were commenting saying woohooo...I'm going to try that.
There is a certain mentality of the basic readership over at John's. A lot of AGLOCO folks building up the downlines for a to-be-released sometime in the future parasitic toolbar. John included. You're only going to get so far preaching to that crowd.
OTOH, many networks, managers and merchants read here and at bumpzee. So now they are clued in to put Chow and others posting over there (rather silly to say..oh good idea...I'm going to do that...here's a link to my aff site) on their radar.
Personally I hope other folks boot him from their programs for just promoting the tactic.
[...] Jangro gives a great writeup on why this is a bad idea and list sprcific TOS from the major affiliate websites: Non End-User Initiated Events. Publishers may not use invisible methods to generate non End-User initiated impressions, clicks, or transactions. All click (“Clickâ€) events must be initiated by an affirmative End-User action. [...]
Not only is this tactic unethical, but recent versions of IE will not accept the cookie if the browser settings are at their default. Since the iframe and the page serving it will almost certainly be different domains, the cookie is considered to be "third party" and will be dropped unless the user changes their privacy settings.
[...] John Chow the scandalous affiliate, covered by Shawn Collins and then later by Scott Jangro talks about John’s post on some underhanded affiliate techniques that violate terms of service of like every affiliate network out there. Scott adds that “cookie stuffing” is way outdated anyhow. The funny thing is that John’s readers thing it’s like the new hottest thing. Hot if you want to get the banstick. [...]
Scott,
I know someone who published three consecutive and very successful ebooks on ClickBank that recommends this exact method on one of the ebooks.
He proudly presents this tactics as advanced. You should know who I am talking about.
Unfortunately, this still works on some affiliate networks especially in standalone affiliate programs.
I read John's blog often and I think that the intent in his postings is not always on the surface.
If you read the post, he does say it's evil and not many aff programs will allow it.
I know he doesn't straight out say 'don't do it', as some may think he should...BUT he may just be pushing things to get those links and people talking about him?
That's my thought!
I think your right Joshua, plus with John he's happy to write about any techniques that could earn you money, no matter how "evil" they are, the chances are that theres still a lot of programs that you can get away with using that tactic, I'd personally never risk it, but I'm sure loads of people do and that make a lot of money doing so. Johns blog isn't about the right or wrong of making money, its about making money full stop.
You guys have absolutely no idea what you are talking about and John has punked all of you and you don't even realize it.
Of course he knows that this whole thing is fraudulent and black hat. But he is playing his game of poker so well that you fell for his bluff.
Think about it. He gives out bad advice and a bunch of people get the boot for generating fraudulent leads. All the while he is doing everything by the book.
This is known as 'Affiliate Darwinism' - Survival of the Smartest. He has turned a bunch of lemmings into fodder and made you guys look like fools for wasting your time on this.
The Mad Ape
© 2012 http://www.jangro.com/
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John Chow posted today his "evil affiliate marketing trick of the day", allowing you to get credit for sales even if your visitor doesn't actively click on an affiliate link.
John writes:
The problem is that you need the user to actually click on an affiliate link?
What are you hoping to get paid for if not for referring a visitor?
He goes on to boast in his post that you, the reader, have been sneakily cookied with an affiliate tracking code by his hidden iframe.
John, this is soooo 6 years ago. It's called cookie stuffing and it'll get you kicked out of just about every affiliate network and program out there. This is covered in most terms of use and service agreements that the networks have in place. For example, from the Publisher Code of Conduct in use by both Commission Junction and Performics:And from Linkshare's Terms:
In fact, according to an update that John provided on his post, it looks like his actions got him kicked from the AuctionAds program.
Be careful with this advice. And as usual, if it seems wrong, it probably is.